The Marriage Lottery
by duj
Summary: Azkaban was too good for that snake. First, he'd manipulated Harry into Dying For Dumbledore, then he'd repudiated the Lily memories at his trial and advertised his new business (Pensivision) by faking on the spot a Nineteen Years Later vignette... Now he's a rich recluse and the trio hate him more than ever. Enter the MLC... (No smut, but the story's not for children.)
1. Snape in a Scrape

SNAPE IN A SCRAPE

 **Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

 **Post-DH MLC, no smut (But be warned. This story's not for children.)**

 **A/N: Thanks to my previewers Bellegeste and Lady Memory. I started writing this five years ago, and it's been stalled at three chapters for almost as long. I just want to set it free of my hard-drive and out into the world, so here it is. Maybe this will unplug my inspiration and start me writing again.**

Ron pinched the smell of polluted canal out of his nose, and pondered Bubble-Head charms.

"I can't believe they matched you with Snape!" he said.

Hermione didn't even bother to roll her eyes. "It's the Ministry, Ron. Where Umbridge came from. What's not to believe?"

"Yeah, but that was then. This is Kingsley!"

"It's because it's Kingsley that there's a problem. Fudge and Scrimgeour believed in good old-fashioned nepotism."

"Nepper-what?"

"Looking after your mates, Ron." Not that they'd ever been matey with Fudge or Scrimgeour. "Kingsley's been infected with Muggle concepts like fairness and equal treatment, even for the famous." And infamous. Like Snape.

"Yeah, but Snape, Hermione! He should be in Azkaban, not part of the flipping Marriage Lottery! Slimy Pensivision King."

"Prince," she said automatically, and scowled. Azkaban was too good for that snake. First, he'd manipulated Harry into Dying For Dumbledore, then he'd repudiated the Lily memories at his trial - "Love someone with the poor taste to marry a Potter? Me?" - and advertised his new business by faking on the spot a Nineteen Years Later vignette of them seeing their children off to Hogwarts. The _Daily Prophet_ Viewer's Poll had rated "Albus Severus ... bravest man I ever knew" and Muggle-Confunding "I'm extremely famous" Ron Weasley and his oblivious wife as two of the top three jokes of the immediate post-Voldemort era. They'd all become laughing-stocks, and Snape's Pensivision Video Vials - "Set your mind free, with 3-D PVV!" - had gone on to outsell all other wizarding entertainment media for the last six years.

"Whatever," Ron said. "Greasy git."

Ditching the love story had seemed a risky ploy, but Snape had oiled his way out of Azkaban as easily as he'd oiled his way into Dumbledore's confidence seventeen years earlier.

"By their fruits you shall know them," he'd said, pointing out that he was the only Hogwarts headmaster in recent memory to keep _all_ the students alive during his tenure. "And unlike Dumbledore and Dippet, I was hampered by a Death Eater administration trying to do the opposite."

When he'd added that the first death occurred within an hour of the House Head consortium chasing him out, Professor McGonagall had had to be removed from the courtroom...

* * *

Spinner's End was surely the dirtiest of these dirty streets.

"What a dump," said Ron. "The richest man in Britain, and he lives here."

Hermione's eyes travelled along the row towards the house at the end that was about to become her new home.

"Maybe he doesn't care. What does he have to spend it on, anyway?" 'Books?' she thought doubtfully. He'd always ridiculed her reading habits, but surely a person didn't become as knowledgeable in his fields as Snape was without a reading habit of his own.

Ron snorted and rolled his eyes. "The usual?" he suggested. "Presumably, he must have working parts or he wouldn't be part of this mad lottery business, would he? They'd have exempted him for non-fertility."

"Pity they didn't exempt him for non-humanity!" Hermione muttered. "Who'd want to touch Snape with anything but the point of a pitchfork?"

"Well, there you are, then," Ron said. "Just like I said. How else can he get any?"

"I don't know and I don't care, just as long as I can stay out of it."

"But you can't, more's the pity." Ron looked at his friend's set mouth and decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. 'Look, love," he said gently. "I can ask you know who for his Cloak and hex Snape's third leg while he's not looking."

"No, they'd be sure to think it was me, and then I'd _never_ get out of Azkaban." She scowled. "It kills me to think we fought Voldemort all those years for _this_! I still think I should just refuse. It's only a year of mouldering in a cell. A high profile refusenik could be exactly what this stupid law needs. Maybe people will think twice before agreeing like sheep."

"A year of Dementors is enough to send most prisoners mad."

"I'm already mad, and I don't think I can get any madder!" she said. "Don't you think it would be worth it?"

Ron shook his head. "If people won't risk Azkaban for their own futures, why would they risk it for yours?"

* * *

The door opened. Snape's hair looked as if it hadn't been cut or washed since his trial.

"Weasley," he said. "What do _you_ want?"

He didn't move out of the doorway. Ron stepped forward and bounced off a wall of hard air that explained why Snape hadn't bothered to draw his wand.

"To carve out your liver," Ron said after regaining his balance. He rubbed hard at his nose and scowled. "But I'd settle for knocking your block off."

"Indeed? It's been, what? Seven years next month? And you still haven't managed to save up enough for a copy of _Snape_ _in a Scrape_?" The older man regarded his grimy fingernails thoughtfully, his hair sliding forward over his bent face. "My best seller, you know. Would have made me a household name, if I hadn't been already."

Ron snorted. "I've better uses for my dosh than _pretending_ to kill you."

"How disappointing." Snape turned his hand slowly this way and that, watching the sun's dim reflection slide back and forth across his nails.

"How do you like knowing everyone's just lining up to punch your face in?" Ron said.

"Thus proving their taste as poor as their intelligence. And paying me for it too. How could I possibly feel but smug? Vindicated." Snape tipped his head back the better to look down his nose. "Let's not forget who really saved the wizarding world, however you all like to ignore it."

Hermione's hand on Ron's arm enforced his silence. "Shut-up, Snape, and let us in. You know why we're here," she said.

Snape gave an exaggerated start, as if he hadn't noticed her until then, and she ground her teeth. "I know why _you're_ here," he sneered. "Gold-digger."

"Grave-digger more like, where you're concerned."

Snape bared his teeth. "While you look forward to making yourself a rich widow, do try to remember it means you get to share a cell in Azkaban with my mouldering corpse."

"It's the only way I'd touch you!" she spat.

"It's the only way I'd let you."

She lifted her chin at him. "If you mean that, we can do business."

"And if he doesn't, you'll be past his wards and able to try the mouldering corpse option," added Ron helpfully.

"Thanks, Ron," Hermione said. "I'll take it from here."

"I thought you wanted me to protect you."

"How were you planning to do that? Did you think you'd be following us into the bedroom?" Snape looked him up and down. "I'm afraid you're not my type."

"Not fond of red hair?" Ron asked, deliberately misunderstanding.

Snape eyed him again. "Red hair, blue eyes, long nose. You look remarkably like Albus Dumbledore. Are you sure you're your mother's child?"

Hermione growled, and both men turned with a jump. "Enough with the flirting! This isn't about _Ron_! I'm here! We're married! Now what are you planning to do about it?"

Snape shrugged. "What are you?"

"Let me inside and I'll tell you."

* * *

Ron banged the gate shut behind him.

"Well," Hermione said after hearing his pop of Apparition. "Aren't you going to let me in?"

"Three conditions. You don't free my elf. You don't gossip about me. And no one passes my wards under any circumstances."

" _Any_ circumstances? Even if you're dying and you need a healer?"

Snape was still staring behind her at the closed gate, his eyes narrow. "I'll live longer without one. Have you forgotten who I am?"

Her breath caught momentarily, but no, he was loathsome. He deserved it.

"And if I break your rules?" she said.

"You'll wish you'd chosen Azkaban."

"I still might," she muttered, and raised her voice. "I have conditions too."

"No," he said instantly. "You have entry to my house, but my life remains my own." He opened the door wider. "And yours remains yours. Do as you choose."

She pushed past him, her hand on her wand, and stared. Walls covered in books, a worn sofa, an armchair that still held the imprint of his body and a small table with a congealing fried egg on a plate.

"Do I get the tour?" she asked, searching in vain for doors or a staircase.

He shrugged. "My study. The books stay in here. Watch out for the top shelves. They bite. And don't talk to me while I read." He pointed to one side, where she could almost distinguish the outline of a door around the middle bookshelf if she squinted. "The kitchen." He pointed to another wall. "The stairs. The big bedroom's mine. Stay out."

"Suits me," she said. "Where's the bathroom?"

"Toilet's out the back."

"Toilet?" she repeated disbelievingly. "Where do you wash?" She glanced at his hair and winced. Silly question. But he was answering.

"Tub in the kitchen," he said. "Stay out when I'm there."

"A _tub_?"

"Are you a witch or not?" he said. " _Aguamenti, Fervesco, Evanesco_ ; it's perfectly feasible." He looked at her disgusted face. "Merlin's sake, Granger! Surely you can manage a bit of magical plumbing if it's that important to you."

She bit back her acid comment about it obviously not being of importance to him, and conjured herself a rose chintz armchair, just because he was sure to loathe it.

"Right," she said, sinking into it and kicking off her shoes so hard one hit him on the shin. "Let's talk about getting round the consummation requirements. Any ideas? I was thinking a Switching Spell."

He bounced back out of the chair he'd just sunk into and levelled his wand, his other hand hovering protectively where she refused to look. "Are you insane, woman? D'you think I'd let you -"

"I meant fingers, you idiot, not..." She rolled her eyes. Her Ministry ring was not infallible, but she needed to insert _something_ genetically Snapey to trick it.

He glowered at her for several seconds before slowly sitting back down. "Twice a week," he said, enunciating with bitter precision, "I will provide you with a vial of fertile matter. You do what you want with it. Use it, denature it or toss it in the bin."

She looked at him again, more closely this time. "You're not even going to check what I do? Don't you care if they cart you off to Azkaban?"

She hadn't thought his lips could hold any more sneer. But he didn't answer.

* * *

"Iggle!" he called, when they'd glared each other out of countenance long enough. A dark-eyed house-elf in a clean pillow-case appeared with a _crack_ and pounced on the forgotten plate of egg. "Master dids not eat his dinner again," it squeaked. "Bad Iggle mades nasty tasteless dinner."

"Iggle!" Snape said sharply. "Leave it and turn around." He waved a hand dismissively at Hermione. "This is Mrs Snape. You may obey her wishes when they don't conflict with mine. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Master Snape, good Master Snape. Iggle wills listen."

Snape cut across the elf's fulsome babble of greetings. "Iggle will let you in any night you arrive after 10pm. If you don't want him waiting up, don't keep him waiting." And with that, he got up and stalked out of the room.


	2. Cold and Greasy

COLD AND GREASY

 **Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

 **A/N: Thanks to my previewers Bellegeste and Lady Memory.**

"They matched you to _who_!" Cho shrieked as they slid into adjoining chairs in the Ministry lunchroom. "And you went _through_ with it?"

Like she could speak, Hermione thought. Cho had married Wilbert Slinkhard; she'd be spending the next ten years listening to him expound on how they could have beaten Voldemort through Defensive Magical Theory.

"Depends what you mean by went through." Hermione fiddled with the Ministry ring she'd been issued the previous morning - in her sleep, so she couldn't refuse it. She could twist it round and round her finger and move it up and down the length, but it was charmed not to come all the way off. "I've spoken to him."

Cho dropped the cutlery bundle she'd just picked up from her tray. "He came to the _door_?"

"More than that, he let me in."Hermione unrolled her own cutlery bundle and watched the knife and fork land on the tray with a satisfying clang

"No way! You must be the first person he's let in since, since, well, ever!"

"He wasn't married to any of the others." Hermione shrugged, and wrinkled her nose as the smell of Cho's greyish beef stroganoff reached her. She tucked into her curried rice with an appetite, letting Cho draw the obvious conclusion herself. She didn't disappoint.

"Guess he's still blessing his freedom after his last Azkaban holiday. He wouldn't dare let them reel him back in. You might get out after the year, but they'd be sure to find pretexts to keep _him_ back forever, Ponceyvision Prince or no."

"Pensivision," Hermione corrected.

Cho popped a piece of beef into her mouth and chewed and chewed. "Poor you. Hermione Snape. Erm, Snape-Granger? Granger-Snape?"

"I see no reason to change." Hermione smiled with all her teeth. "Last thing I want is to share a name with my husband." She cast a steely-eyed glare on her companion whose Ministry-chosen spouse had insisted on her doing just that. "Everyone knows he's a slinker. Wouldn't want them to think I am too."

* * *

"You okay?" Ron said, taking a deep swig of his pint. "Haven't killed him yet?"

"Considering where to hide the body." Hermione stared gloomily into her glass, reminded as usual that her hair was a boring shade of mid-brown without these lovely golden glints where the light caught it. "Azkaban without his mouldering corpse might be bearable. With, not so much."

"You could use Barty Crouch's trick: Transfigure it into a bone," Ron suggested.

"I'm not a Death Eater!"

"Only married to one. The slipperiest one of all. Cheers." He took another swig. "Killing him's too good, really. Too quick. And if you didn't get Azkaban, it would be another Death Eater marriage quick-smart."

Hrermione made a face. "Probably. Goyle just got out, didn't he?"

"Did he? I thought they gave him ten years?"

"Time off for good behaviour." Another of Kingsley's Muggle innovations. Sometimes she wondered if the Purebloods hadn't had a point.

Ron banged down his drink. "Good behaviour! What other sort of behaviour can you have when a Dementor's sucking out your brains?" They both sighed.

"Not that Goyle had any to start with," Hermione said. They shared a smirk. "Did you get your letter yet? Who've they matched you with?"

Ron winced. "Gwenog Jones."

"The Harpy?" In more ways than one. Hermione had met her at one of Slughorn's club meetings back in sixth year. Ron had better get used to spending time as a woodlouse.

"She's out of the country still. Might not return, given this. The idiots! If we lose her to Belgium..."

Hermione cut short the Quidditch rant, as usual. "She's still playing? She must be, what? Fifteen years older than us?"

"Twelve. And even if it was fifteen, she'd still be younger than Snape." He wiped his mouth and stood up. "Get you another?" Hermione shook her head, and he tossed over his shoulder. "Could've been worse. At least we have something in common."

 _Yeah, your tempers._

By the time he returned and handed her a packet of cheese and onion crisps, she'd reflected that it didn't matter much. There'd never have been cosy foursomes with him and his Ministry-chosen match, not when hers was Snape. Anyway, Molly's temper was at least as bad as Gwenog's, and Ron had survived that.

"Heard about anyone else? Ginny?" She ripped her packet open and looked for the biggest crisp.

Ron eyed the head on his beer from several angles and, deciding he was satisfied, drank deep. "Not yet. But she's heard from Luna. She's met that chap, er Blanksop? Porkchop?"

"Blenkinsop. Timothy Blenkinsop," Hermione mumbled around a mouthful of crisp.

"Oh, yeah. Knew it was something like that."

"And?"

Ron's hand, holding at least four chicken crisps, stopped just in front of his mouth. "Nice enough chap, she says. Puddlemere United supporter. Hates the Harpies, though, so she'll have to keep him away from Gwenog." His hand moved on and he crunched loudly.

"Pity," Hermione said. "Still, at least there's nothing wrong with him." Ron cackled, and she added, "Is there?"

"Luna doesn't think so," Ron said, taking another handful of crisps. "Says she can't wait to get her hands on him -" He waited for Hermione to slip another crisp into her mouth before adding, "- and see if his tail's really longer than a Snorkack's."

Hermione choked. Bits of chip flew everywhere except Ron's drink, which he'd thoughtfully guarded. She picked up her beer and slurped the last of it down.

"Very funny," she said.

"I thought so." Ron lifted his cup in silent toast.

"Be even funnier if you try that on Gwenog."

He winced.

"Don't suppose you've heard from you know who," she said.

"Erm, not since yesterday, no," he said.

Hermione scowled, and Ron made a face. "I'm sure he'll be sorry when he thinks it over," he said. "He must know you can't help it. It's just you know how he feels about Snape. Always has, except for that half a week at the end of the war, and that only made him hate Snape more, of course."

"Does he think I _don't_?" She crumpled her crisps packet before remembering it wasn't empty, and scowled even harder.

"Erm, no, not really."

" _No_?"

"Well, you were always defending him in school."

"That was in _school_ , Ron! Things have changed since then. I used to fancy _you_ in school!" She rolled her eyes.

Ron grinned and grimaced. "I remember." Especially the canaries. Some might say Ginny's Bat-Bogeys were worse, but people laughed louder at a bloke for being afraid of canaries. Hermione might smirk to herself about Gwenog's temper and fondly think he had no idea what she was thinking, but he thought Hermione's was the worse of the two.

"What's he _thinking_?" Hermione burst out. "One too many hits in the head with the bludger? I didn't want to get lumbered with Snape any more than _he_ wanted to be lumbered with Millicent Bulstrode! And I hope she knocks some sense into him!"

Ron sighed. More like to knock the sense out of him, really, but they could hope.

* * *

"What's wrong with you?" Hermione said, ignoring the hand that held out something she wasn't quite ready to think about. His, er, fertile material, as he'd put it. _Tosser._ "It's been three days, and since that first meeting we haven't exchanged two words. Every time I walk into a room, you walk out of it. I'm almost ready to chuck this away and land us in Azkaban just to prevent you walking away from me again. How long are you planning to keep this up?"

"As long as I need to," he said, through gritted teeth. "Take the vial."

"Answer the question!"

"My life is my own, and I'm not accountable to you. "

He placed the vial on the table he supposedly ate at. As usual, there was an untouched plate of food: chops and mash this time, cold and greasy. But it had been perfectly appetising when Iggle brought it. Hers had been, anyway, although it was served in her bedroom. No wonder he was so thin. It was surprising there was anything left of him at this rate. Perhaps he had a stash of chocolate biscuits hidden in his sock drawer.

"I'm your wife!" she said, and bit her lip. Even she could hear how lame that sounded, but she had questions he hadn't given her a chance to ask.

"You're a free-loader who's trespassing on my hospitality to stay out of Azkaban," he snapped back. "An unwelcome intrusion into my home and my life."

"Because they were both so wonderful without me!"

"At least I could go where I wanted in my own home without having to see your frizzy mop and squirrel teeth everywhere I looked."

"I haven't had squirrel teeth for ten years," she pointed out loftily, and smirked as he ground his own crooked choppers. Keeping her temper was hard, but watching that purple vein on his temple start to bulge made it worth it. "Not since Malfoy hexed me in fourth year, and you laughed. Thank you for that, by the way. I mightn't have dared change them for years without that spur."

"It's about time you thanked me for something!" he spat, and slammed out of the door. She wiped droplets off her cheek, and wrinkled her nose at the other wet little present he'd left her. It was decision-time. Could she really put that in her?

In there?

She fiddled with her silver Ministry ring and tried to grin. "It's just like inserting a -" But her mind stalled there, because it wasn't and she knew it. "I've been with losers before," she told herself loudly. "It's not that different." But it was. It was him. His. She despised him, and he couldn't even pretend to stand her. Could she do this in cold blood? She thought of the alternative, and shuddered.

But between Snape and a Dementor was there really such a huge difference?

* * *

In the event she couldn't do it in cold blood.

"Iggle?" she said. "Could you come here, please?"

A loud _crack_ sounded behind her and she swung around.

"What does Missy Snape wants?" Iggle asked.

Hermione made a face. The only thing in favour of being called Missy Snape was that it was a bit less servile than Mistress.

"Firewhiskey and a glass," she said. "Do you have any?"

"Iggle can brings glass, yes."

"And firewhiskey," Hermione insisted. "Or is he keeping it for himself?"

"Iggle cans ask to buy some."

"No, wait! Do you mean he doesn't have any?" Better find out what alcohol Snape kept or who knew how many times the elf would wink backwards and forwards before she got her drink.

"No, Missy Snape. Master Snape doesn't likes firewhiskey. Shall Iggle brings tea?"

"Brandy? Whisky? Scotch? Gin? Vodka? Mead? Eggnog?" Hermione listed in increasing desperation, as the elf repeatedly shook his head. "Butterbeer?"

"No, Missy Snape, no butterbeer. Just tea and pumpkin juice and elf-made wine."

"Wine!" Well, at least she wouldn't have to go look for a pub that was still open. She'd been staring at that vial so long her eyes ached. "That'll do," she said. "A bottle of whatever you've got, thanks."

* * *

Half an hour and three-quarters of the bottle later, she was ready to do what had to be done. She stood up, picked up the vial and walked out of the room to bang on Snape's door with it.

He was there; she'd heard him moving around. Unless he lifted the Apparition wards, he had no place to go.

* * *

 **A/N The story of Timothy Blenkinsop and the tail is from the Daily Prophet Newsletters, written for the Official Harry Potter Fan Club by JK Rowling.**


	3. More Than Miserable

MORE THAN MISERABLE

 **Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

 **A/N: Thanks to my previewers Bellegeste and Lady Memory.**

The vial was Unbreakable. The door was less so. Already, it was starting to splinter.

"Come out and face me, you coward!" Hermione yelled.

She stepped back in a hurry as the door banged outwards, and Snape's furious face poked out.

"DON"T call me COWARD!"

She looked him up and down. "Nice towel," she said. "So you do wash your hair sometimes."

His hair hung in two dripping curtains, and his black robe had obviously been pulled around a wet body. It wrinkled and clung.

"Did you call me out of my bath for something important, or did you just feel the need to ogle me?" he asked, balling up the towel in his hand, then shaking it open and draping it over his shoulders.

"As if! I didn't even know you were having a bath. I thought you had them in the kitchen."

"I did, when my whole house was as private as my room. That is, unfortunately, no longer the case."

She rolled her eyes. "It's not as if I want to look at you in the bath."

"You're looking now."

"You're not in the bath now."

"I would be, if you hadn't tried to break down my door. I didn't know you were so desperate for my company."

"I'm not."

"And yet, here we are. What do you _want_?"

"Not to be married to you! Not to be stuck in this dump with someone I detest! And most of all, not to have to put _this_ in any part of me!" She thrust the vial at him.

"You mean you didn't use it yet? What are you waiting for? Aurors to drag you away?"

"Drag _me_? Don't you mean _us?_ Don't pretend you're not involved. This whole scheme is legalised rape - and you've made it worse because you expect me to do it to myself. Well, I won't. It's not good enough. You're supposed to -"

"What?" His chin thrust out even further. "Watch? _Help_?"

"Care," she said at last. "You're supposed to care."

"I'll leave that to the sort of people who waste their lives saving the world." His mouth twisted. "You can do all the caring for both of us."

"You claimed you were the one who really saved the world."

"And look what I got for it. You!"

"I hate you!"

"You've always hated me," he said flatly. "Why should I care any more now than I ever have, just because you've been foisted on me by our glorious new Ministry?"

"Because, you slimy git, you _owe_ us!"

"Nothing. I owe you nothing. Now if you've quite finished, go away."

"I haven't even started."

He glared at the vial in her hand. "So I see. But unless you plan to assassinate Kingsley and topple the Ministry and its ridiculous law, you'd better get on with it in a hurry."

She surprised herself by growling aloud. "I don't know why I even bother trying to talk to you!"

His upper lip drew back from his teeth. "You wanted someone to blame," he said, "and as usual you thought of me. But this was your choice. I didn't force you to move in here. If you're not willing to face the consequences, don't come whining to me." His chin lifted higher. "I'm not paid to listen to your whining any more, and I won't do it."

She snorted. "You never did."

"I notice you don't dispute the whining."

"Don't be ridiculous. As if anyone except Malfoy would have wasted their time trying to get your sympathy."

"And still you don't dispute the whining."

"Thanks for reminding me what a git you are. I should have known better than to try."

"And yet you never do." He bared his teeth. "Slow learner."

She raised her fist and dropped it again. "I just can't do it," she admitted. "There must be another way."

He looked her up and down several times. "There was. But you wouldn't have liked those consequences either."

"There was? How? What?"

"You could have cast a Fidelius and spent the rest of your life Secret-Kept. All you needed was a secure place, a House-elf to shop for you, and a dislike of human company."

She stared. "Like you, you mean?"

He pursed his lips and said nothing.

"Why didn't you, then? Why let me into your house at all, if you knew you had a better way to stay out of Azkaban?"

"Perhaps," he said, "I didn't think I was miserable enough."

"You're more than miserable enough! You're the most miserable excuse for a man I've ever met."

He pulled the towel more tightly around his shoulders and drew himself up to strike. "And yet you're here."

"It was you here or you plus Azkaban."

"I didn't mean here in this house. I meant here at my door, drunk off your face -"

"Who'd want to talk to you sober?" she muttered.

"- and telling me your petty troubles while you try to stare through my robes. Find some of that Gryffindor courage you're so proud of and take your medicine like the good little girl you always pretended to be. And leave me out of it. I'm done with solving other people's problems. Especially yours."

"This is your problem too! They'll come for both of us if I don't do this."

"They won't come to a Fideliused house."

"This house isn't Fideliused."

"It will be by morning, if you can't lie back and think of England, like women have done from time immemorial."

"Lie back? And then what? Levitate it in?"

"When you wish to sleep with me sober, let me know. Maybe I'll get drunk enough to accommodate you."

He slammed the door in her face, and she heard the telltale buzzing of _Muffliato_. She lifted her hand with the vial, ready to bang again, and found herself facing an angry elf.

"Bad Missy Snape! You leaves good master alone now. Goes back to your room and stays there till you learns some manners."

"He's not good. He's deeply, deeply horrible!"

"You is the horrible one. You lefts him to die, and now you comes here to bothers him to death. Goes back to your room and stays there!" Iggle flicked a hand forward, and a buffet of air pushed her backwards across the landing and into the small bedroom, back and back until she stumbled and fell, half-on half-off her bed. The vial fell from her hand and rolled under the chest of drawers she'd Conjured there.

...

The door hung open but the doorway was blocked by impermeable air. Even her voice sounded thin and strange when she called and screamed. In the end, she summoned the vial back into her hand and pulled at the stopper, then yelped and dropped it again. It wasn't a stopper at all, but a fingerlike protrusion that grew more fingerlike the more she pulled. It had even grown a fingernail, and the vial itself had softened under her hand and squeezed inward like a sauce bottle.

"Oh, yuck." But at least it was only a finger. Perhaps he'd been as revolted by the thought of the other thing as she was. It didn't seem to be leaking, but when she picked it up and touched the fingertip, she could feel it grow stickily damp.

"Yuck," she said again. Slimy punsyvisual prince.

There was no way she knew of to undo elf magic, and the house was warded against Apparition. She was trapped in this room until Iggle or Snape let her out, and it hadn't escaped her notice that the elf had not limited his second "stays there" with an "until". If Snape cast Fidelius on the house, he wouldn't need her alive to stay out of Azkaban. The Ministry couldn't touch him. And no one would know where she was or how to find out. But she hadn't fought a war to die trapped in a bedroom.

"Iggle," she called. "Iggle, come here at once! I have work in the morning." She waited. "He told you to obey my orders!"

The elf appeared just on the other side of the doorway.

"He dids not. He saids 'may', not 'must'. You is bad Missy and I's not obeying you. Stays here or jumps out the window." He pointed a finger, and the window of her room burst open.

She turned from the empty doorway to examine the drop. A knotted rope slide was nailed to the frame. So at least their intents weren't murderous. But if she ever wanted to leave this house again, there was (gulp) something she had to do first. Yuck.

...

She'd been fighting a war since she was eleven. She'd hexed and run and screamed and watched friends die. She hadn't thought she had any innocence left to lose. But still the wizarding world kept peeling her like an onion. Damned if she'd let them make her cry about it. Pollute herself twice a week with his "fertile matter" or spend the rest of her life trapped in a Fideliused house with the world's biggest slimeball and his one repulsive sycophant? Put like that, the choice was obvious.

And afterwards she'd conjure a tub and _Aguamenti, Fervesco, Evanesco_ till her skin was raw.

...

It wasn't enough. Nothing could make her clean. She debated briefly between firebombing Shacklebolt's house or banging on Ron's door, but there was no contest, really. She knew where Ron kept his liquor.


	4. Bad Missy

BAD MISSY

 **Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

 **A/N: Thanks to my previewers Bellegeste and Lady Memory.**

 **(For those who don't remember, you know who in this story is not Voldemort...)**

* * *

It never got any easier. She laid in a stock of hard alcohol for the nights she had to do the deed, but it was a fine line between drunk enough to do it and not drunk enough to foul it up. The night she'd had to ask Snape for a second sample, the vein in his temple had bulged so darkly she almost thought his brain would explode.

Strange, he'd been in the bath then too. Clearly, they'd all been mistaken about his hygiene at Hogwarts. He always seemed to be in the bath. It was odd that his hair never got any less greasy. He might as well be bathing in oil for all the difference it made. What on earth could he be putting on it, and why?

What did he do all day and night, anyway, holed up in his bedroom? When he wasn't abandoning his latest wet little present into her custody, she barely saw him at all. Iggle must have put an alarm on the floor, because every time she put a foot nearer his side of the landing than halfway, Iggle would wink in and glare at her.

"Bad Missy. Leaves Master alone."

It wasn't that she wanted to spend time with Snape, but being treated as if she was the one with the plague got right up her nose.

...

'Enough complaining,' thought Hermione. It was time for action. She might not be able to topple the Ministry (singlehanded) or appoint a new Wizengamot, but she wasn't going to be anybody's doormat.

"I'm going to free that horrible house-elf," she told Ron. "Then we'll see."

He blinked at his glass as he straightened it with both hands. "You can't. He made it a condition."

"Much I care for his conditions. I didn't agree to them." (Not in words, anyway.) "And since when do you care about promises and conditions, anyway?"

"I didn't say you shouldn't. I said you can't. He made it a condition. The moment you try to free the elf, you lose the authority. You can give it your whole wardrobe, and it won't matter."

It shouldn't surprise her when he knew something she didn't. He'd grown up in this world, after all, in a Ministry family that talked (and yelled) around the table. She shook off the feeling of vertigo his moments of sapience always gave her, and clenched her hand around her glass.

"Then how did you-know-who free Dobby? He's not a Malfoy. It wasn't even a Malfoy sock."

"Yeah, but he tricked Malfoy into offering it. House-elf bonds are consensual. They can only be broken when one or other side wants to. The Malfoys couldn't hand Dobby even a hanky because they knew he wanted out, but how d'you think Hogwarts got the laundry done if they couldn't get the elves to take it?"

She scowled, remembering all that useless knitting she'd done in fourth year. Why hadn't he been this articulate back then, instead of telling her "But they like serving!" She might even have listened.

...

If she couldn't free Iggle, she'd just have to recruit him, and she thought she knew how. When Iggle delivered her dinner the next night, she was ready.

"Why doesn't Snape eat? Is he ill?" she asked.

Iggle scowled at her. "Why does bad Missy wants to know?"

"It's my job to keep him alive."

"Isn't. Is Iggle's." And he winked out before she could ask again.

If it wasn't her job, it was certainly her need. If Snape died in the first year of their marriage, the vile ring on her finger would Portkey her to Azkaban to await the results of his autopsy. Even if she was cleared, she wouldn't be freed till they matched her again, and it would probably be someone worse than Snape.

(Was that even possible?)

She flattened her bashed neeps, and poked eye-holes with her fork. Put one and a half green peas for its beady eyes, and give it a burnt-sausage moustache, and it would almost look like Macnair, she thought, and shuddered. Was he due for release in the next year? She thought he might be. Hadn't his department entered a mitigation plea on the grounds of his "long years of faithful service"? (Did they think the "dangerous" creatures he'd executed for the Ministry cancelled out the victims he'd executed for Voldemort, who was arguably the most dangerous creature Britain had ever seen? Other dark wizards might have killed more people, but only Voldemort used murder as coin to ward off the Reaper.)

The _Prophet_ had gone all out in ridiculing that travesty of a defence, but the Ministry had won (again), and Macnair's sentence had been halved. She smashed her fork on the peas so hard they flew off her plate and onto the floor, then she got up and ground the nearest in with her heel, for good measure. (Let the elf clean it up, if it liked servitude so much.) Macnair would be a vicious husband. At least Snape never laid a finger on her.

Or it could be Goyle, perhaps. He was cooling his heels in Azkaban for an extra month after his abortive release, when he'd shouldered aside the waiting reporters a little too vigorously. Ugh, he'd been a brainless brute before he went in. Seven years of being Dementor fodder wouldn't have improved his brains or his brutishness. She pushed the mash into an uneven pile as tall as it would go without falling apart. Azkaban had reduced Goyle's brawn substantially, without adding any value back. She'd bet he'd as soon eat a book as read it. Snape had that lovely library - even if, as he'd pointed out, the top shelf liked to bite.

(As if that would scare her. She'd learned a thing or two from the _Monster Book of Monsters_ Hagrid had assigned them in third year. Books were easier to tame than people.)

Not that Snape would be easy to tame, even if she wanted to. If people grew to be like their pets - as her next-door neighbour used to say, eyeing Crookshanks askance - who'd make a pet of Snape? You might as well cuddle an asp. She choked on a sudden vision of a gold-clad personage with a long silver Dumbledorean beard and a black-eyed snake winding up her (his?) cradled arm. She wanted to laugh, but the rightness of it stabbed her, and all the niggling doubts she'd harboured shrivelled away, perhaps never to return. Dumbledore had _owned_ Snape, and owning, placed him at his breast, like Cleopatra, and bade him bite. And Snape had obeyed.

(Like the snake he was. Never forget that.)

...

No elf was going to outlast her. If Iggle kept fobbing her off, she'd just keep asking till she wore down his resistance.

"He is ill, isn't he?" Hermione said, as Iggle dumped a plate of shepherd's pie in front of her. "He never eats, and he's just getting thinner and thinner."

Iggle thumped down a knife and fork with unnecessary vigour. "None of you's business. Why does bad Missy wants to know? You hates him."

Hate was a very strong word. But maybe not too strong in this case.

"I used to respect him, but he betrayed us."

The elf slammed down the jug with a crash and a splash. "You's betrayed him," he said, glaring the table dry. "And you's never respected him. You's set him on fire. You's knocked him out. And you's left him to die."

Hermione paused in the act of picking up her knife. "How do you know all that? Were you a Hogwarts elf?"

"None of you's business. You is big snoop. I's telling Master."

Hermione poked doubtfully at her meal.

"Good, maybe he'll talk to me for once," she said. "I've been here three weeks and haven't exchanged three words yet."

It was not for lack of effort. Snape could try all he liked to avoid her, but his wet little deposits had to be handed over in person. That one swift encounter was enough to fool their rings each time, but so far it hadn't been long enough for her to get a word out of him.

She tried again the next day. "Why are you always hiding? What have you got to be afraid of?" she asked.

"Being bored to death by your whining," he said, and closed the door in her face.

...

Lunch that Saturday was rissoles and onion gravy, served with a snarl. Snape, as usual, was nowhere to be seen. lggle was all too visible.

"You might as well answer," Hermione said, sending Dripley's _Deceive It or Not_ back to the top shelf for later. (A fascinating tome, but not one she wanted to share her gravy with. Greedy thing tried to steal her plate last time.) "How long has he been ill? What's causing it?"

Iggle pulled at his left ear-lobe with one leathery hand.

"Why bad Missy cares?" he said.

Hermione's hand hovered over her fork.

"Because of the stupid law," she said, at last. "I'd rather live with you two for a year than be passed along like a badly wrapped parcel."

The fork rattled, and stood suddenly on its end, barely missing her fingers.

"Bad, selfish Missy," said Iggle.

...

She couldn't help it. Now that she'd let herself notice, she couldn't unsee it. Snape was getting sicker, and all the signs pointed to it having started with their marriage. He'd looked greasy when she sought him out, ring-finger newly-circled; now he was gaunt. She never saw him eating, but that was hardly surprising. She barely saw him at all. What was he doing all the time? He never seemed to be in his downstairs room, with all its books, and there never seemed to be any gaps on the shelves but what she put there by her own borrowings. He was never in the kitchen either, or on the landing - not when she was home, at any rate. In fact, he seemed to have retreated to his bedroom ever since she arrived, the prison of his house made even smaller by her presence.

But that had to be nonsense, didn't it? He wouldn't have given up three-quarters of his house to her, not when he could have Fideliused the place before she arrived, and kept it all. It was a dingy little hole of a den for a wounded animal to die in - and that was another image she didn't want in her head - but dying animals didn't invent successful businesses, and run them. They didn't become rich. They certainly didn't become famous as the Pensivision Prince of Entertainment.

Wizard space was expandable. If he was running his business, single-handed, from his bedroom, it must be vastly larger on the inside than it seemed on the outside. There could be whole rooms crammed with books and props and Pensivision vials; he must keep his back-catalogue of PVVs somewhere. Of course, it might be just a portal to another, even more secret, Safe-Kept house, but she thought it would take him longer to answer the door in that case. And why bother with two Safe-Kept houses when one would do?

"Focus, Hermione," she told herself. "Worry about that after you've figured out how to keep him (ugh) alive."


End file.
